


Divergence

by Thamnophis



Category: Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9807473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thamnophis/pseuds/Thamnophis
Summary: The Raksura of Indigo Cloud encounter a distant relative.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Possible minor spoilers for Edge of Worlds. This story assumes that Martha Wells won't kill off her main characters in Harbors of the Sun.

Balm spotted the groundlings about twenty ells from the Indigo Cloud colony tree, near the far point of her wide patrol. They had a Kishan moss boat tethered to a branch of a young mountain tree, and their camp was scattered across one of the upper platforms. Sending the two young warriors, Spring and Snow, left and right to cover their flanks, she and Aura flew down to see what the groundlings were up to and, if necessary, order them to leave.

The style of the flying boat brought back unpleasant memories, but Balm was relieved to see that most of the groundlings appeared to be Janderans. Even after so many turns, she might have reacted badly to the sight of Hians. Their leader cautiously approached the two Raksura and presented a folded sheet of vegetable fiber paper which turned out to be a letter of introduction from scholar Callumkal. It identified the groundlings as a group of Kishan scholars interested in surveying the unique flora and fauna of mountain tree platforms. That seemed harmless to Balm, and their somewhat chaotic camp supported the notion that they were all pursuing different scholarly interests. She could see one group measuring and dissecting a dead grasseater and another sorting through piles of harvested epiphytes. After warning the lead scholar about the danger of remaining in one place for too long and strongly suggesting that they dispose of the grasseater carcass before it attracted unwelcome attention, she turned to go. 

But before she and Aura could walk towards the edge of the platform for an easy takeoff, the wind changed, bringing with it the scent of a strange Raksura. She turned back to the Janderan leader.

“I thought you said we were the first Raksura you had encountered,” she said in Kedaic.

The Janderan looked uncomfortable. “The first in the Reaches. We, um, met up with a male Raksura in Kish, and I thought he would be useful. He came with good references from the merchants whom he had been serving as a bodyguard.”

Kishan scholars were one thing, but a feral, possibly criminal, solitary was quite another. Pearl and Jade would not be pleased if Balm failed to investigate a solitary in Indigo Cloud territory. “Where is he?” she asked the Janderan.

He looked around, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “Scoria, over here please.”

Balm saw a young man emerge from a tent, hold up an arm in acknowledgement, and then duck back inside. A few moments later, he emerged carrying two cloth-wrapped bundles. As he approached, he appeared nervous but not obviously furtive or guilty. He stopped in front of Balm and dipped his head in an odd, un-Raksuran gesture. 

Balm examined him with a certain amount of distaste. He was not a particularly attractive specimen--shorter and stockier than the average warrior, but not quite as heavily muscled as an Arbora. His hair was clipped short in a utilitarian rather than decorative style, and he was not wearing any jewelry. “What do you think you are doing here, solitary,” she rasped in Raksuran.

The solitary’s brows knit in confusion, and he replied with a stream of incomprehensible gibberish. The sounds were Raksuran, but Balm couldn’t pick out any words that she recognized. She shook her head and irritably snapped, “What?”

“Do you speak Kedaic?” asked the solitary, in strangely accented Kedaic.”

“Who  _ are _ you?” she replied in the same language. 

“I am an emissary from a distant”—he paused, as though fumbling with unfamiliar words—”you say court, I think?”

Balm nodded. She was starting to get a bad feeling about the whole situation.

The solitary held out the cloth wrapped bundles. “These are gifts for your reigning queen and strategos.”

The last word was unfamiliar, but it sounded to Balm as though it had the same root as the Kedaic word strategy. “Strategos?”

“Your chief consort,” explained the solitary. “I bring greetings from my court and would like to request an audience with your queen.”

Balm thought that was probably a steaming pile of grasseater dung. What court would send a single warrior as an emissary, and why would he be hanging around a bunch of groundlings? But the solitary’s body language lent his crazy story an air of complete conviction, and Balm felt the need for advice. She took the bundles and handed them to Aura. “I’ll pass on your request to my queen. Don’t go anywhere before we return, solitary, or we’ll hunt you down.”

******

Pearl and Moon unwrapped their gifts before an audience of Jade, Ember, Balm and Stone. The longer bundle for Pearl, reigning queen of Indigo Cloud, proved to be three short javelins. Their hafts were made from an unfamiliar dark wood polished to a high shine, and the steel of the blades had beautiful wave markings from their forging. Behind the cutting edges of each blade were a pair of vicious barbs. Pearl passed one over to Jade, her sister queen.

“This is lovely,” said Jade, turning it in her hands so that the blade caught the light. The Arbora hunters sometimes used javelins or short, stout stabbing spears, but they were purely utilitarian. These had a much more elegant appearance, like lethal works of art..

“Those barbs would make it difficult to withdraw,” Stone pointed out. “If you hit a flying enemy, you’d put them at a significant disadvantage.”

“Hmm,” said Pearl. She lay the remaining two javelins down beside her pillow and turned to Moon, Jade’s consort. “What did the solitary send the first consort?”

Moon unwrapped a very unusual dagger. It had a heavy blade with triangular cross section and a strange hilt with the grip perpendicular to the blade. Steel bars extending down from the blade past the hilt appeared to be designed to protect, or brace, the wielder’s forearm. 

Moon had more experience with groundling weapons than any of the others, even Stone, the ancient and widely traveled line-grandfather. “It’s a push dagger,” he told them. “Some of the races in the Abascene Peninsula use them to punch through armor. But the grip is oddly proportioned...”

He shifted to Aeriat. “Now it fits. It may have been designed for Raksuran claws.” He shifted back to groundling and passed the dagger to Stone.

“What a strange gift for a consort,” said Jade.

“This is old, I think,” said Stone, turning the dagger in his hands. “The blade is nicked in several places and the grip is worn.”

“Do you think the solitary stole it?” Pearl’s young consort, Ember, asked uncertainly. He turned to Balm. “What was your impression?”

Balm shrugged. “He’s a strange one, that’s for sure. He may have made up that story about being an emissary, but if he’s just a crazy exile, I don’t think he came from any of the courts we know.”

Pearl tapped the floor with a claw. “I want to question him. Just in case his story is true, let’s do it properly. A daughter queen will bring him in.” She turned to Balm. “Take an escort of warriors, and show Frost where to find these groundlings.”

******

The groundlings had moved their camp to a smaller, more easily defended platform on the same tree that Balm had discovered them on. Frost hoped that the move hadn’t been precipitated by an attack by any of the large predators that were still common in the further reaches of Indigo Cloud territory. Spring and Snow remained circling overhead as she swept down towards the camp, flanked by Balm and River. The Janderan leader waved and hurried into one of the tents. A few minutes later, the solitary Raksura emerged and walked forward alone to greet them. Frost was pleased to see that he had taken her arrival seriously and had made some attempt to clean up. His clothes were finely cut, though somewhat wrinkled, presumably from storage in a pack or chest, and his hair, too short for braids, was at least smoothly brushed.  He was wearing simple silver jewelry at wrists and throat. He looked at her with interest as she furled her wings, stepped in front of Balm, and spoke carefully in Kedaic.

“I am Frost, daughter queen of Indigo Cloud. Our reigning queen has agreed to meet you, so we have come to bring you to the court.”

The solitary nodded. “I’m Scoria, fourth apprentice to Strategos Obsidian of the Skyholt court. Ready when you are.” Then he shifted. 

Frost had already scented him, so she wasn’t surprised, but Balm hissed in shock and actually took a step backwards. River just rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand and muttered, “Oh, not another one.”

Lacking Frost’s finely tuned queen’s senses, the warriors clearly hadn’t realized that Scoria was a consort when they saw him in groundling form. Now, his black scales with dark bronze undersheen made it obvious. Like his groundling form, his Aeriat form was stocky, and his short blunt wings spoke more of maneuverability than speed and elegance. Compared to Moon or Ember, or even Stone, he was positively homely.

“Why is a consort living alone among groundlings?” asked Balm in Raksuran.

River snorted. “Maybe he’s like Moon.”

Frost rattled her spines and hissed. “He’s nothing like Moon.” Her adoptive father was unconventional, but he was fierce and brave and loyal and beautiful. Nothing like this scruffy solitary.

River flattened his spines, abashed, as Scoria looked inquiringly at them. “Is there a problem?” he asked in Kedaic.

“No,” said Frost. “We’re ready to go now.”

They flew in a rough globe formation with Scoria at the center, River and Spring flying high, and Balm and Snow flying low. Frost led the way. They were only seven or eight ells from the colony tree when Snow drifted too close to a tangle of woody vines that had smothered most of a small mountain tree platform. Frost heard his surprised squawk and spun around just in time to see the white tentacle wrapped around his ankle yank him down into a dark burrow among the thorns. She shrieked a warning and stooped, slamming into the vines just as other tentacles arrayed around the hole withdrew, allowing the stems to spring back and completely obscure the burrow. As she pushed into the tangled mass, she felt, rather than saw, Balm, River, and Spring hit the vines at high speed.

Thorns plucked at her scales as she shoved against the vines, but it was her wings that were a bigger problem. Even tightly furled against her back, they kept catching in the looped and knotted stems, forcing her to back up and try again. At this rate, they would never reach Snow in time. A dark form pushed past her and eeled down among the vines, disappearing into the green dimness. It was the solitary consort, Scoria. How had he managed to move so fast? Perhaps his shorter wings were an advantage in this situation, but what they really needed were Arbora hunters.

She snarled in frustration at her own stupidity and shifted to Arbora as the vine mass suddenly shook and muffled squealing rose from the depths. Now she could move more easily, although the thorns scraped painfully at the softer frills and scales of her Arbora form as she followed the mingled scents of Scoria, Snow’s blood, and the monster’s musk.

She hadn’t gone far when she heard Balm calling her urgently from somewhere above. She growled and with some difficulty managed to get turned around. She broke out into the open just in time to see Scoria flying up from somewhere underneath the vine mass. He was carrying Snow, unmoving and in groundling form. Frustration and chagrin warred with relief as she shifted back to Aeriat, flicked her wings open, and leapt into the air.

She caught up with Scoria at about the same time as the three warriors. He was spattered with blood—by its smell, the vast majority from the monster—and was panting with the effort of fighting and then carrying Snow. “He’s alive,” he gasped, “but he needs a healer or arcanist soon.”

Frost came in close, synchronizing her wing beats with Scoria’s, and he passed the unconscious Snow to her. “I’ll fly on ahead,” she told him. “The warriors will bring you the rest of the way in.”

Scoria flicked his spines in acknowledgement. She turned and sped towards the colony tree.

******

The formality of the queens’ hall was marred somewhat by the curious Arbora and warriors lining the walls, crowding the doorways, and peering in through the high windows for a glimpse of their odd visitor. Jade had rarely seen the room so full, though as sister queen, she had a good view of the proceedings from her cushions slightly behind and to one side of Pearl. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Frost, the only daughter queen old enough to attend the proceedings. As an unmated daughter queen, Frost should have been seated well behind Jade, but she had surreptitiously slid forward for a better view. Without turning her head much, Jade could watch Frost watching the consort, Scoria. She was amused to see that Frost was unconsciously nibbling on a claw as she stared intently.

Scoria was in groundling form, as were all the other Raksura in the room except the queens.  Jade and Frost had taken their Arbora forms in deference to Pearl, but Pearl retained her winged Aeriat form as a sign of her authority. As Balm had described, Scoria’s groundling form was far from classical standards of consort beauty—too short, features too blunt, and with a fading scar showing on his left arm below the short sleeve—but his decisive actions in rescuing Snow reminded Jade, and perhaps Frost, a little of Moon. Scoria seemed far less twitchy about being the center of attention, though. Unlike Jade’s consort, he showed the signs of healthy socialization in a court of some kind. Smiling fondly, Jade reached back and felt Moon take her hand. She couldn’t see him in his formal position behind her, but he was sitting close enough for her to feel his body heat.

Stone ambled in, pushing aside a couple of warriors who were blocking the doorway, and sat almost level with Pearl so that he could have a good view of everyone. Pearl flicked a couple of spines at him but didn’t say anything. Jade was reminded of the old fledglings’ joke:  _ How do you get a line grandfather to do what you tell him? Find out what he wants to do and tell him to do that. _

Pearl rattled her spines, and the noise in the room died. She regarded Scoria.

“I am Pearl, reigning queen of Indigo Cloud.” She indicated Jade with an elegant golden arm. “This is Jade, sister queen. The mentors tell me that Snow will make a full recovery. We thank you for your bravery.”

Scoria dipped his head. “I’m glad to be of service.”

Pearl reached down and picked up one of the javelins and the dagger. “The first consort and I also thank you for your gifts. Will you tell us something about them?” Jade wondered why Pearl didn’t get right to the point and ask Scoria about his origins, but perhaps she was trying to get him off his planned script to see if his story would be consistent.

“The javelins were made by the Skyholt’s greatest Arbora artisan for our reigning queen, Citrine, when she leads the queens and Aeriat warriors. Citrine thought they would be an appropriate gift, queen to queen. The dagger is the traditional weapon of Arbora and consorts, used when groundling armor is too strong for claws. That one is an heirloom. It was wielded by Strategos Charoite when he led the Arbora to victory over the tuskers of Tel Senira.

“It’s unusual to send a consort alone as an emissary isn’t it.”

Scoria licked his lips nervously. “I’m not exactly a formal emissary.” At the sight of Pearl’s disembowling claw tapping on the floor, he added hurriedly, “I mean, Citrine and Obsidian knew I was coming—they sent the gifts, after all—but we didn’t actually know that you were here.”

“Explain.”

“All apprentices to the strategos are required to spend a turn or two out of the Skyholt, living among groundlings—learning how they live, how to pass as one, that sort of thing.” He paused for a moment. “That’s the main reason I wanted to be an apprentice. We’ve had good relations with most of the surrounding cities for the last couple of generations, so there’s not much scope for advancement. I’ll probably never make third apprentice, let alone strategos, but I thought I’d enjoy traveling before I settle down.”

Jade felt Moon shift slightly behind her and hiss quietly under his breath. He knew all about traveling and trying to pass as a groundling, but she could guess what he thought of doing it as a lark.

“About ten turns ago, an apprentice away in the Zerashk Confederacy met a merchant from Kish. This merchant had never heard of the Skyholt, but she  _ had _ heard of Raksura.”

Pearl held up a hand and turned to Stone. “Zerashk Confederacy?”

“Somewhere beyond the far side of Kishan territory,” said Stone. “I’ve never been there.”

Pearl nodded and turned back to Scoria. “Go on.”

“When it was time for my Away, I decided to try to find these other Raksura. Citrine and Obsidian agreed to let me go and gave me the gifts. It took longer than I expected, because I didn’t really know where I was going or even if the merchant’s story was true. I got across Zerashk all right, but then I fumbled around in Kish for almost two turns before I fell in with the expedition heading to the Reaches. It’s…” He swallowed, and his voice sounded a little strained. “It’s good to be among Raksura again.”

That, Jade thought Moon  _ would _ understand.

Pearl regarded Scoria, her spines and frills betraying no emotion. “And now that you are here, what are your plans?”

Scoria looked up at her and smiled, and Jade had to suppress a smile of her own. Young consorts, even one as homely as Scoria, were always so appealing when they were trying to wheedle something out of a queen.

“I was hoping to stay in your court for a little while and learn as much as I can about your way of life, so I can report back to Citrine. When I hear about the number of courts in the Reaches, the Skyholt seems very isolated. Perhaps it‘s too far for regular exchanges of embassies, but I think my people would enjoy hearing about yours.”

“We owe you a debt for rescuing our young warrior,” said Pearl. “You are welcome to stay and meet with any of the Arbora or warriors who are interested.”

“You can stay in the consorts’ bowers,” said Moon. “We have plenty of space.”

Scoria didn’t hide his pleasure, and Jade thought Frost looked pleased, too.

******

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked Bone, the chief hunter. “Our Aeriat don’t.”

“Yes, yes,” said Scoria. He looked around at the group of hunters gathered with their nets and short spears at one of the colony’s lower landing platforms. “The Skyholt is a solitary mountain surrounded by open savanna, so I want to see how your hunting strategies differ from ours.

Bone scratched at the ring of scar tissue encircling his neck. “I’m just saying that in heavy undergrowth, your wings will be a hindrance, not a help. You won’t be able to fly up out of the way if a spikehorn charges you.”

“Oh!” said Scoria. “I understand.” He shifted to a black Arbora form and leaped down onto the horizontal branch that the hunters used as a bridge away from the colony. Digging in his claws, he climbed around and clung like a giant black lizard to the side of the branch to make way for Bone and the other hunters to pass him. After a moment, he looked back over his shoulder to see why no one was following.

A row of Arbora faces, eyes wide and mouths hanging slightly open, peered down at him. At the center of the row Bone shook his head, as though bothered by a gnat, and blinked slowly.

“Did I do something wrong?” asked Scoria.

******

Later that evening, Jade, Moon, and Stone met with Heart and Chime on a balcony overlooking the colony’s main garden platform. Heart, the chief mentor, had been tasked with learning as much as possible about Scoria, and Chime—as a former Arbora mentor, now warrior—had a strong personal interest in Raksura with unusual shifting abilities.

“I suppose this explains why they have a consort leading their Arbora soldiers,” said Jade, “and why Scoria’s groundling form looks so much like an Arbora.”

“And it lays to rest any suspicion that he’s just making up a story,” said Moon. “It’s clear that he isn’t an exile from one of the courts in the Reaches. We’d have heard of something this strange. Do all of the Skyholt Raksura have three forms?”

“No,” replied Chime. “Just the consorts. Scoria had no idea that ours were different. When he heard about Stone, he was really surprised; the Skyholt bloodlines don’t produce line grandfathers, apparently. He had never heard of an Arbora transforming into a warrior, either.”

“Where is he now,” asked Moon.

Heart replied, “After we’d extracted everything he knows, we cut him loose. I think Frost has taken him down to visit the Kek village among the roots.”

Moon rubbed his forehead and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s so...unexpected. Is he really a Raksura, or is he something else? Some sort of crossbreed or mimic?”

“Raksura,” said Heart, definitively. “I think the people of Skyholt must have left the Reaches very early, when there was more mixing of Arbora and Aeriat bloodlines.”

“What do you mean? The bloodlines are still mixed.” Moon had several young clutches with female Arbora.

“Where do royal Aeriat fledglings come from?” Heart asked rhetorically.

“Oh.” said Moon.

“You see?” said Heart. “When consorts and queens mate with Arbora, their offspring are Arbora or infertile warriors. Only queen-consort matings produce more queens and consorts. So, the Arbora in a court are related to the dominant Aeriat bloodlines, but no royal Aeriat have Arbora ancestors. Their bloodline remains separate.”

“It must have been different at the beginning,” added Chime. “We assume that the Aeriat got their bright colors and queens their Arbora forms from early matings of Aeriat forerunners with ancestral Arbora. That would be around the time when we think Scoria’s ancestors left the Reaches.”

“How does this explain Scoria’s ability?” asked Stone, trying to pin down the mentors before they drifted off into fascinating, but ultimately useless, historical speculation.

“Skyholt’s breeding structure is different,” explained Heart. “Fledgling queens and consorts still come from royal Aeriat matings, but a few consorts are also born from matings of queens and Arbora. Apparently, those births are prized, because the consorts are thought to have especially strong Arbora forms.”

“And that means most of the royal Aeriat have at least one Arbora grandparent or great grandparent,” said Chime.

Moon groaned. “This makes my brain hurt. If we all came from the same ancestors, why are they different?”

Heart gazed out across the gardens for a few moments before replying. “Suppose I collect seeds from sweet beans, bitter starshell, and spiny gourds and mix them together in a bag. Then you and I both take a handful of seeds and plant separate gardens. What will we have?”

“A mess,” said Stone succinctly.

Heart ignored him. “Depending on what seeds we grab, I might have lots of sweet beans and very few spiny gourds. You might have lots of gourds but no starshell at all. You see? Skyholt is different, because it started from a small population and has been separate for so long.”

Chime said, “Perhaps our queens selected consorts for their beauty, while those of the Skyholt, surrounded by hostile groundlings, prized consorts who could fight on the ground.”.

Moon frowned at that.

“I wonder,” said Jade, “if a Reaches queen took a Skyholt consort, could they clutch?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Chime. “We can cross with Fell, and these Raksura are much more similar to us.”

“Do you think the consort’s shifting ability would be inherited?” asked Moon.

Jade hissed in amusement. “We may find out sooner rather than later. Pearl has decided that the embassy to Skyholt should be led by a daughter queen.”

“Frost?” Moon’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You think she and Scoria…”

“The only question in my mind is whether she’ll take him before they get to the Skyholt or wait to ask permission of his birthqueen.”

“But…he’s nothing like the consorts she has met at Opal Night and Emerald Twilight.”

Heart just shook her head. Jade rolled her eyes. Stone smacked Moon on the back of his head. “Idiot.”

“It’s shocking, I know, that Frost would be interested in an unconventional consort,” said Chime drily. “Wherever can she have gotten that idea?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story came from idle speculation about Raksura genetics and population structure. Heart lays out the issue in the final scene.


End file.
